


Before, Now

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, M/M, Polyamory, Sex is not a good way to deal with PTSD, okay maybe sometimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:35:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27465028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Hera and Rex have built a life together, but it started a long time ago.
Relationships: CT-7567 | Rex/Hera Syndulla, Kanan Jarrus/CT-7567 | Rex/Hera Syndulla, Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13
Collections: Star Wars Rare Pairs 2020





	Before, Now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rivulet027](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivulet027/gifts).



Kanan has that restless energy burning inside him again. He's been wound up ever since they joined up with this new squadron and these new people. They wear uniforms and have ranks, and behind his eyes are nightmares of the last time he went on military campaign. Hera is occupied with a dozen tasks a day, feeling air under her wings now that she's among others who share her cause. She belongs here. He doesn't, but he's bound to her with a tether neither of them will name. He might stretch far away on a mission now and then, but he'll always snap back into her orbit.

Bringing a clone trooper aboard might be enough to stretch him to the breaking point.

Hera understands, as much as anyone can understand. Kanan thinks he's hidden more of his past than he has. Each piece he handed over absently has been placed into her mental mosaic of him. There's a dark, jagged place that shares the same face as their new ally, the same face as the men who rescued her as a girl. Kanan trusts Ahsoka when she tells them Rex is safe, but his eyes flicker away from Rex when he thinks no one will notice. Part of him will always be that traumatized child who watched his parental figure die at the hands of Rex's identical brothers.

Rex isn't a paragon of healthy coping, either. He and Ahsoka are as thick as thieves, sharing a rapport that can only be built by almost dying together multiple times. But he doesn't like spending more time in a room with Kanan or Ezra than he has to. Ahsoka is inside his circle because she's always been there. The other two are Jedi first, and that's a word that stings him. Kanan sees death when he looks at Rex. Rex sees his own failures when he looks back.

They need time. All of them need to rely on each other, or this rebellion is going to collapse before it starts. Hera will give them time, but this can't continue forever.

* * *

Jacen had the best giggles. Some days, Hera only made it through her grueling workload by promising herself as soon as she got home, she would sweep him into her arms and tickle him until he giggled and reached in for a cuddle. She loved her ship, and her crew, and her family, but she hadn't known the _Ghost_ was empty before her son was there to fill the corridors with echoing laughs.

She was aware that she was being maudlin again, and wiped her face with her hand before coming into the lounge where Jacen played on the deck with Rex. They'd lined up his toys into two armies again, a mix of soft plush huggy toys bearing down on a valiant formation of painted plastoid animals. Rex was making blaster noises with his mouth and Jacen burst out laughing every time. Hera couldn't keep the smile from her face as she said, "I'd better not step on those later tonight."

"Again!" Jacen demanded, moving his arms into the position that meant "more." His grasp of language was uneven. Hera was grateful he'd been born with most of his limbs. The infant signs he used weren't the same as he'd use if he had lekku to gesture, but they were close enough.

Rex picked up a floppy tooka with one eye and made the blaster sound again. Jacen knocked over three of his plastoid toys with his hand and laughed, utterly unafraid of the noises, or of the grinning face under the bushy beard who made them. Rex was teaching him strategy with the toys. Jacen just thought it was fun.

Hera looked in the galley. "Did you eat?"

"Not yet. We were waiting for you." Rex scooped Jacen into his arms, which ended in another giggle. The warmer was set on Low. Something good bubbled inside the pot. "Zeb and Kallus already ate. They've pulled a late watch. Won't be back for hours." Rex handed her the squirmy toddler, kissing her cheek as he passed him over, then started dishing their meal.

* * *

Another dinner, another uncomfortable setting where Kanan is a little too loud, Rex is a little too gruff, and the others make excuses as fast as they can to get away. It's bad enough that Sabine agrees to go off with Ezra, something that would have been unthinkable yesterday. Even Chopper is avoiding them, and he loves to egg on a good fight, or a bad one.

This would be easier if they would just have the argument, but it's not an argument they can have. There's nothing either can change in himself to make things better. Kanan was born a Jedi, and Rex was born a clone. Born into different lives, they might merely irritate each other.

Hera can't fix things between them. She can end the moment. She gets up from her place and pushes Kanan's shoulder. "It's your turn to do the washing up, love."

That gets his attention, and for a moment, earns her the same hard look he's been giving Rex half the night. "It's Zeb's turn tonight."

"Zeb's busy. You're switching nights. Ask me nicely and I'll help you dry." She doesn't drop the other half of the threat they both hear under the words. If he doesn't ask nicely, she'll make Rex do it, and likely lose half the plates they own in the process.

Kanan smoothes his face into a more pleasant expression. "Will you please help me dry the dishes?" Rex almost ruins things when he snickers under his breath. Hera keeps her own expression pleasant instead of cursing every human male she's ever met.

"I need you to calm down around him," she says when they're alone.

"He needs to be less annoying."

"He's being himself, and so are you. I'm not asking you to be his best friend."

"Good."

"I'm asking you to act like an adult. If nothing else, you need to model better behavior for Ezra. If he sees you arguing all the time, he's going to think it's fine to argue with people instead of finding common ground."

Kanan passes her a dish. "Fine. I'll be nice to him."

"Thank you. You know I'm in a better mood when you get along with people." She drops her voice.

Kanan pauses in his washing. "How good of a mood are we talking about?"

"We'll have to find out," she says, taking the next dish with a smile.

* * *

After dinner, Hera helped Jacen gather his toys. He carried the soft ones to his room first, his arms bulging with fuzzy torsos and dangling legs. His own legs were getting stronger and more sure every day. His growth curve didn't match a human's or a Twi'lek's. He was on his own journey.

Rex swept the plastoid toys into his big hands. Hera said, "You shouldn't do that for him. He has to learn to clean up for himself."

"Eh, he's learning fast enough. This way you won't step on anything."

Hera paid attention to the small pieces he dropped, gathering them herself. As soon as Jacen trundled back to the lounge, she placed them into his small hands. "Careful." He grinned and took them to his room. Rex's voice boomed out of the cabin as he picked up a fallen stuffed animal and acted like it was some stern commander. None of Jacen's toys looked like humans, or any other sapient species he knew. He would learn what it meant to be a human from Rex and Alexsandr, not from a misshapen doll. She was teaching him what it meant to be a Twi'lek, when she could and as best she could. She'd made so many plans before he was born. Lately, the only plans she kept to were keeping him fed and clean.

She listened as they played together. Rex had been raised with ten million brothers. Another small human who wasn't exactly human didn't daunt him. She understood how much it meant to him to help raise a Jedi child, how many of the old wounds on his heart healed a little more each day. She felt the same way.

When the game finished, whatever game they were playing, Jacen wandered back into the lounge, ready for snuggles and his evening routine. They read stories together, Hera pointing to the words, Jacen listening raptly. He loved storytime, and often managed to get half the family involved, grabbing the 'pad in one fist and racing to the next reader to get the voices right. Tonight, he took the book over to Rex, who was mending a hole in his spare shirt, and gestured at him to make the silly voice for the bantha.

"You know your mom can do the bantha voice, too." But he took the 'pad and deepened his voice.

"You do it better," Hera said, taking the 'pad back when it was her turn.

* * *

After they rescue Ezra together, there's a change in the atmosphere. Kanan and Rex still prod and poke and jostle each other, but the teasing is underpinned with a new mutual respect. Hera hadn't hoped for this, but she's grateful to see them tumble into a real friendship. They still argue over plans, and how best to train Ezra, but they play games together, too, and she finds them working together on ship repairs more than once.

It's a welcome change.

Other things are changing. She's not ready to categorize them yet. Observations must be made, and filed away. In this column, glances that would have been filled with resentment before seem to be filling with something else in increments every day. Under that line, small and simple excuses for time together that would have been unthinkable before their mission to the Interdictor. Pieces of the past she knows, and pieces she's put together on her own gather in a third array. Hera sums this information in her mind, and comes to a conclusion.

"You're flirting with Rex." They're alone, and it's late, and Kanan has nearly nodded off beside her. She keeps her voice gentle, ready to back down if he's spooked.

He wakes, one sleepy eye focusing on her. "What?"

"Nothing. Go back to sleep."

Both eyes open. "Flirting?" He wakes up more, putting on the annoyed expression he wore for Rex's first several weeks among the team. "Funny. I am not flirting with him."

Except he is. She knows what Kanan is like when he flirts. She gives him a quick, noncommittal smile. "All right."

"He's not my type." A warm hand strokes her arm. "He's ancient."

"He's younger than you are, dear."

The hand freezes in place. "That's not.... Okay, fine. I am not flirting with him."

"All right," she says again, and kisses his chin because it's close, and rolls over.

There's a long, silent pause. Kanan doesn't fall into the deep breathing she knows means he's asleep. "Maybe a little." He rolls closer to her. "Sorry. I wasn't trying to flirt. I didn't mean to upset you."

She rolls back over to face him. It's going to be one of those conversations. "I'm not upset. I've been telling you for months that Rex is a good person. I'm glad you finally noticed."

"Yeah, well." He stops, his brain whirring behind his eyes here in the dark. "Wait. Are you flirting with him, too?"

"I don't flirt," she says with an airy dismissal. "As well you know."

That earns her a laugh and an embrace, and soon, they're both far too distracted to talk. Sleep can wait.

* * *

"Time for sleep," she told Jacen, catching him in the middle of a yawn. She scooped him up, let him give goodnight kisses to Rex's head, and carried him to his room. The top bunk was covered with his toys, now put away into three bins stacked neatly side by side. She held him up to reach for the soft toy he wanted to hug tonight, then tucked him in before turning out the light. He would chatter to himself for a bit and fall asleep within ten minutes or so.

She went to the cockpit to check on the ship's systems, one of her own favorite winding-down activities for the evening. Chopper whirred at her, intent on his own project at the control panel. The quick diagnostic she ran told her everything was fine, but she already knew it would be. She knew every hum of the _Ghost_ 's systems as well as she knew her own pulse, and a change in either would be as sudden an alert.

This base wasn't secure, not according to the briefing she'd come home from: too much Imperial activity too close by. Leia's team had identified a few potential sites. They'd pick one, or a few to split the fleet, and leave this world behind as she'd left behind so many other bases. None of these felt like home the way Lothal had, and for a while, Atollon.

* * *

They have a series of half-conversations where neither of them says exactly what's on their minds and they both understand what the other means. She notices Kanan backing off somewhat, and turns up her own teasing just that much more. Part of her thinks this isn't entirely fair to Rex, but it's nothing, just a bit of fun.

Kanan asks her if Rex and Ahsoka have something.

"I don't think so. I don't think she's interested in men."

"You don't?"

"She might be. I haven't asked. She did make a rather good pass at me when we first met."

His expression shifts. "You never mentioned that."

"You said you didn't want to know anything about my dealings with Fulcrum. Your exact words."

"Well, yeah, but that's different. You could have said things like, hey, Fulcrum's a Jedi, or Fulcrum's into you, or something."

"I didn't know she was a Jedi, and I didn't tell her you were one, either. And you said you didn't want to know." She reads the look in his eyes and sighs. "And don't even start thinking about that."

"Why not? It's a very nice mental image." He grins, and the conversation moves again.

Ahsoka is rarely there, but Rex is around constantly, and as far as she can tell, he's flirting right back with both of them in his own fashion. She thinks one of them will give in, and drag the other two in, but the stalemate doesn't change, and suddenly, they're setting up a base on Atollon, while Kanan, Ezra, and Ahsoka prepare to leave the rest of them behind.

* * *

Rex was always straightforward with his interest and intent, which suited Hera fine. By the time she returned to the lounge, he'd set aside the shirt he'd been mending and waited for her with a calm, expectant expression that warmed as she approached. She found a place next to him on the sofa and rested against him, enjoying the feel of his arm wrapping around her shoulders.

"You know," he said, leaning back. "Those two won't be back for hours. We have the whole place to ourselves." His hand stroked her arm.

Hera let out an amused breath. "We are not having sex in the lounge again. We've got a perfectly good cabin."

"More fun out here, though."

With mock indignation, she said, "Are you saying you don't have fun when we have sex?"

"I'd never say that. I said 'more fun.'"

"Cabin," she said and kissed him to encourage him to see things her way.

* * *

Hera used to think the three of them would wind up in bed together for fun, but it's grief that pulls them together at last. Ahsoka was a link to Rex and Kanan's pasts, and her loss has left a gap none of them knows how to fill. Kanan is learning to cope with his injury, in turns yielding to Hera's help and pushing her away. She expects Rex to be bitter, and instead he's withdrawn, caught in the memory of another friend he couldn't save.

The kids have gone out on a mission with Zeb, and Rex has managed to get his hands on a bottle of the raw, rough liquor someone else has been brewing aboard their own ship. They gather for an overdue wake. The drink burns her throat and loosens her tongue, lets her tell them the stories she remembers about their lost friend back when she first recruited Hera to the cause. That opens them to their own memories of Ahsoka, stories from the Jedi Temple or out on mission together, and these turn to tales of other old friends. Kanan remembers a song the clones used to sing, and Rex sings the dirty version that his brothers weren't going to share in front of a Jedi General and her young student.

"You know," Rex says, deep into a drink, "I never wanted you to get hurt. Don't think I did." He gestures at Kanan's eyes. Kanan can't see the motion, but he responds as though he can. He's been doing things like that lately, using the Force in ways Hera can't possibly understand. It amazes and frightens her in equal measure. As Kanan's relationship with the Force grows and deepens, he's changing, and she has no idea what his final form will be like.

"I know."

"But if you'd come back without her, and you hadn't been wounded, I'd've broken your karking jaw."

"I know that, too," he says, and takes another drink.

She doesn't know who kisses who first. She's busy with her drink, and pressing the tips of her fingers together as they go mildly numb. When she looks up, Kanan and Rex are attached at the mouth, and she lets out a laugh because it's just that strange. They break apart instantly, to her regret, with a hot flame working its way over Rex's face, and remorse written all over Kanan's.

Hera settles back in her seat, and takes another sip. "You should do that again." She fixes her eyes on them, and they take it as an order.

Her senses swim pleasantly but her brain is clear enough. This is the point they were working towards months ago, before everything broke. Rex looks as nice without his armor on as she suspected. She touches ground with Kanan to confirm he's still fine. He might not be able to see Rex, but the thought of getting naked with a clone isn't any easier in the dark.

She finds she underestimated him, more than a little. He might carry the frightened boy he was inside of him, but the young man he was becoming at the time imprinted hard on the men surrounding him. He's had a juvenile crush on people who were just like Rex down to the chromosome since he was a kid. For all his own talk, Rex has spent much his life intensely bonded to Jedi, and to the idea of them, though he's never been this close to one. His lips move over Kanan's body, learning the places Hera has only just begun remapping herself.

She's happy to sit back and let them work this out themselves, but that doesn't last. Kanan tugs her closer and Rex's mouth finds her, too, and it's good, better than she hoped. They manage to get back to her cabin, and bring nearly all their clothes with them. There's a beard bristling against her back, and another against her belly, and she can't see either one. Invisible kisses pass over her lips. They don't even make it into the bunk before she's clutching the side of it, one tasting her, and the other easing into her with a slow, deliberate thrust, and in her heady confusion and wonder, she doesn't know which is which. By morning, it won't matter. By morning, they'll have all had each other thoroughly enough that they're sore and worn out in the best way.

This will happen again, not frequently, not with their duties and their schedules, but often enough that she and Kanan will both know the taste of every inch of Rex's skin, and that he'll have a favorite place to sleep in her bed long before he moves there permanently.

Tonight it's a simple matter of flesh and touch and kindness in the dark, and that's sufficient for them all.

* * *

Her cabin was chilly. Chopper's charging station had been moved to Jacen's room, and kept his cabin a little warmer than the rest of the ship at night. Rex hadn't officially moved in yet, but even as they closed the door, her eye rested on his things placed around the room and she knew that was simply a formality of language. His clothes lived in one of her spare drawers. Schematics he was working on sat in her workspace. His armor had a set place to go when he shrugged out of it. He was filling her life here, for whatever time they had..

She loved each wrinkle he grew on his face, and over the rest of his aging body, though she knew he collected them faster than everyone around them. A chronometer ticked out the seconds for all of their lives, while his sped along at a lothrabbit's breakneck pace. He could grow old with her, but she couldn't grow old with him. Then again, this was a war. Chances were, they'd both be blown out of the sky before either of them had to think about retiring. Not a cheerful thought to take to bed with her.

His arms were still strong enough to lift her to the bunk, which she fell into with a short laugh. "Watch it, you'll hurt your back again."

"Will not." He climbed in beside her, and he was warm in her arms, and full of smiles. His hands found the tender places on her body where she liked to be stroked, and her lips found his, shuddering her breaths into his mouth as he brushed a particularly sensitive spot with one practiced thumb.

She tried not to compare him to her last lover, tried not to call back the first time the three of them had found each other in this same bunk, or the times after that when Rex had joined her and Kanan here, and created something sweet together out of so much pain they'd brought along with them on their journeys. Tonight and always, Hera made her best attempt to live here, now, in this moment with this gentle, good man, as he touched her and kissed her and loved her here in the dark.

'Now' was all anyone ever got.


End file.
